Invited Speakers in Alphabetical Order

Mauricio Cárdenas

Mauricio Cárdenas is currently the Executive Director of Fedesarrollo, an independent policy-oriented research center in Colombia. He was named Colombia's Minister of Economic Development in 1994, he serve as Minister of Transportation from 1998 to 1999 and as Colombia's Director of National Planning from 1999 to 2000, among other important goverment positions. In 1999, Cárdenas was selected as one the Leaders of the New Millennium by CNN and Time Magazine. During the year 2001 he was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. He has published a large number of books and academic papers. His publications include edited volumes such as Inflation, Stabilization and Exchange Rates in Latin America (1997) co-edited with Sebastián Edwards and journal articles such as “Stabilization and Redistribution of Coffee Revenues: A Political Economy Model of Commodity Marketing Boards” in the Journal of Development Economics and “On the Effectiveness of Capital Controls: The experience of Colombia during the 1990s” (with F. Barrera) in the Journal of Development Economics.

Pia Orrenius

Pia Orrenius is a senior economist and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Her research focuses on the labor market impacts of Mexico–U.S. migration, illegal immigration, and U.S. immigration policy. Her recent articles include “Does Immigration Affect Wages? A Look at Occupation-Level Evidence” in Labour Economics and “Self-Selection among Undocumented Immigrants from Mexico” in the Journal of Development Economics (both co-authored with Madeline Zavodny). In addition to her Fed duties, Dr. Orrenius is Senior Fellow at The Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University, Research Fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor in Bonn, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Orrenius was also senior economist on the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President, Washington D.C. in 2004-2005. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles and B.A. degrees in economics and Spanish from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

Susan Pozo

Susan Pozo is a Professor of Economics at Western Michigan University. Her main areas of research are workers' remittances, illegal migration and the underground economy, all with a focus in Latin America. Pozo has also edited and written many books in related topics including Essays on Legal and Illegal Immigration (1986), Exploring the Underground Economy : Studies of Illegal and Unreported Activity (1996), Price Behaviour in Illegal Markets (1996) and Immigrants and Their International Money Flows (2007). She has also corroborated in publications for the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations WIDER project, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Some recent journal publications include "Migration, Remittances and Male and Female Employment Patterns" (with C. Amuedo-Dorantes) in the American Economic Review and "Below the Surface: Underground Economic Activity" in the Harvard International Review. Pozo has also been the Second Vice-President of the Midwest Economics Association, a Board Member of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession of the American Economic Association and was a Fulbright scholar during the year 2006.

Kamal Saggi

Kamal Saggi is the Dedman Distinguished Collegiate Professor of Economics at Southern Methodist University (SMU). Currently, he is also the Chairman of the Department of Economics at SMU. He serves as an associate editor of the Journal of International Economics and as the Secretary of the International Economics and Finance Society. His primary fields of interest are international trade and economic development. He has been a consultant for the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, the Andean Development Corporation, the World Bank, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the International Finance Corporation and KPMG . Some recent journal publications include: “Tariff Bindings and Bilateral Cooperation on Export Cartels” (with B. Hoekman) in the Journal of Development Economics, “Is There a Case for Industrial Policy? A Critical Survey” (with H. Pack) in the World Bank Research Observe and “Preferential Trade Agreements and Multilateral Tariff Cooperation” in the International Economic Review.